tenthofjune

Commuters at Blackrod Station are having the proverbial excrement dropped on them from a great height: From 14th December, Northern Rail are switching Manchester bound trains which currently stop at Deansgate, Manchester Oxford Road and Manchester Piccadilly to Manchester Victoria.

Not surprisingly, this causes problems for those reliant on the service to get to work, according to comments on Phil Morgan’s Blackrod Station website, with increased journey times, inconvenient changes that were not previously required and in some cases, additional childcare costs because the commuter can no longer get to work on time after dropping her daughter at school.

Many also question the apparent discrimination against Blackrod when more trains stop at Lostock. Why is Blackrod treated in this way? Being so close to the GM border, is it a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’? Could this be the start of the rot? How long before the number of trains are run down as low as Clifton?

Ironically, these are the one set of commuters (city centre workers) who would actually benefit from the TIF proposals, yet GMPTE see fit to allow Northern Rail to ride roughshod over them in this manner.

It also highlights the fact that when you become dependent on public transport, you put yourself totally at the mercy of the transport operator who won’t hesitate to put their interests over the paying passenger.

This is the so-called ‘world class’ system we are being promised by Richard Leese – No thanks.